


Again

by Evil Teddy Bear (TheDragonRider)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic (Merlin), De-aging with a twist, F/M, Gen, Lancelot (Merlin) Lives, Not Canon Compliant, S4/S5 does not exist in this fic, Smart Arthur Pendragon, arthur deserves better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23896663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonRider/pseuds/Evil%20Teddy%20Bear
Summary: When Morgana uses dark magic to turn Merlin into an infant, buried secrets are unearthed, and Arthur is forced to choose between upholding his father’s law and shielding his oldest friend from the fire.
Relationships: Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Mithian/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 85





	Again

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's been a long time since I've written anything for Merlin but this fic occasionally will jump into my mind and I'll feel inclined to re-visit it, usually around the time that I should be studying for finals. So. Ta-da! Fun tidbit: this was supposed to be light and fluffy... obviously it's not. It also had two other names: Web of Lies and King Arthur's Ward, so I definitely went down a bit of a rabbit hole with this story.
> 
> There should be three parts to this. Obviously, the first one is complete; the second one is pretty much done, and the third part is... a mess. An extreme mess. Which is why it's been sitting on my laptop for literal years, lol.

_i._

**_T_ HE FOE’S MOTHER IS **taken in the dead of night.

“He’s stronger than you,” the mother snarls at the woman as she is forced to her knees by her dark magic. “He won’t let you get away with this, Morgana. Neither of them will.”

Morgana’s eyes blaze with a light that isn’t quite sane. “He took my sister from me. That is unforgivable.”

The dagger is plunged into the unwilling victim. A chant fills the air:

 _“Weaken my enemy with the blood of his kin to cause him to become his most vulnerable!_ ”

* * *

The next morning, a golden-eyed babe is found wailing in the bed of a servant by an old man.

* * *

“What is that infuriating, lazy–” Arthur nearly chokes over his own tongue when he sees a spoon floating, in the air, without anyone holding it up, toward a golden eyed baby. Gold fades away into blue as a small fist clutches around the handle, and a gurgle fills the room.

Sorcery. A baby just used sorcery, magic— _witchcraft_. In the physician’s chambers. In the heart of Camelot.

A baby with very familiar blue eyes.

“Prince Arthur,” Gaius breathes, and Arthur jumps.

“What,” he begins slowly, trying to hold onto his rapidly boiling temper, “was it that I just saw? How did a _baby_ use _magic_?”

“I don’t know.” The answer is instant and the ring of truth is too strong to be denied. “I don’t know how he can use magic.”

And that has too much familiarity in it – Gaius has to know who this baby is. Heaven help him if _Merlin_ is this baby’s father. He’ll definitely throw the idiot to the stocks for not telling him he impregnated a sorceress.

(If he were a few years younger, he would have strangled him with his bare hands, or sent him to muck the stalls at the very _least_ for associating with a sorceress. But Arthur’s known for a long time that he’s sympathetic to those who practice sorcery—Merlin never really tried to hide it. It’s something he ignores most of the time, because he _really_ doesn’t fancy having to train up a new manservant even though Merlin’s practically useless most of the time when he’s not being insufferable. But he’s amusing and Arthur likes arguing with someone who doesn’t care he’s the crown prince of Camelot.)

“Is it Merlin’s?”

“No!” There is too much vehemence in that reply. Arthur pulls back. Gaius hesitates, and something seems to hold in the air with his hesitation.

“Then whose is it? What is its name?” And why does it have magic?

“This _is_ Merlin.”

“That’s impossible,” he responds automatically. Merlin is a grown man who doesn’t have a magical bone in his body. He’s definitely not a baby sorcerer. “Merlin doesn’t have magic.”

Gaius hesitates, and that tells Arthur more than words ever could.

“No. He would have told me.” Except he wouldn’t have: he was the prince of _Camelot,_ a magic hating kingdom. “He wouldn’t. Magic is learned.” The baby’s eyes flash gold and a bowl zooms toward him, as if to directly prove him wrong. “He’s been my _personal manservant_ for over _five years._ ”

“He’s never had a choice. Magic chose _him_.”

Arthur shakes his head. “No. You always have a choice.” He backs away. “Magic is a craft that has to be learned. He didn’t have to hone it. He could have just left it alone.” And he slams the door behind him.

He hears the baby wail on the other side of the door.

* * *

“Lancelot, Leon.” Arthur stands when they enter his bedchambers and walks over to them. Sir Lancelot’s body is tense as his eyes dart around the room – as if he were looking for someone. Sir Leon seems to be curious. “He’s not here,” he tells Sir Lancelot.

“Who is not here?” Sir Leon’s eyebrows knit together when he glances around. “Where’s Merlin?”

Arthur turns his back on them and walks toward his window to gather his thoughts. “I need the both of you to go to Ealdor and ask for a woman whose name is Hunith. She needs to come here temporarily, but immediately. Ealdor is a town on the border of Camelot with Essetir, and it’s a three days’ ride from here.”

“Sire?” Lancelot sounds worried. “What’s wrong?”

Arthur looks back at them and decides that there’s no simple way to explain it. “Merlin has somehow been turned into a baby.”

“What? How?”

“With magic,” Arthur explains to Sir Leon, because what else could it be, and that is the most ironic thing in this matter. His magical manservant has been turned into a magical baby by someone using magic—and he has suspicions as to whom it is.

They stand for a moment longer, then they turn and leave as one, blood red cloaks fluttering behind them in their wake.

* * *

“We’re going to go find your mother for you,” Arthur hears Sir Lancelot tell the baby as he ducks into an alcove to watch them unnoticed. The knight’s voice is low, and he doesn’t seem to be surprised when Merlin’s eyes flash golden and something shiny floats toward them midair. “And then we’re going to figure out how to get you back to normal.”

Merlin gurgles and a small fist waves in the air.

“Yeah, I know.” Sir Lancelot sighs. “I hope Arthur doesn’t do anything stupid about your magic, too.”

_How long has he known?_

(That question keeps him awake at night, along with many others.)

* * *

The baby is staring at him.

At first, Arthur manages to ignore those unblinking blue eyes as he reads report after report in Gaius’ chambers. But soon, it grows to be too much and he finally meets Merlin’s gaze.

“What is it?” he snaps. Merlin gurgles and blue turns to gold and then the gold fades back into blue again. “What did you just–” He cuts himself off when he sees a book zooming through the air toward him and ducks as it slams against the table next to him.

“Thank you, Merlin, for nearing decapitating me.”

The baby gurgles. Arthur glares. That sparkle in his eyes is too much like the – like the person he knew. Once. It almost makes him think that this magical baby and that clumsy manservant are one and the same. That maybe, just maybe …

Except that is impossible. Magic is evil. It corrupts. It’s not inherited; and you always have a choice to learn it—or to not learn it. 

So how can an innocent baby use magic when you have to choose it? Has his father and him had it wrong all this time? Could it be that perhaps, just perhaps, it is not the person who choses magic – but the magic that choses the person?

Merlin looks at him with a curious glint in his eyes, and Arthur fights back a smile. _That_ is a look he knows well.

“Why are you so impossible to fathom?” he asks lightly, but his heart and his shoulders feel heavy.

Maybe he’s been wrong all this time … though about what, he’s not quite sure.

* * *

“Hunith was not there?” Arthur echoes Lancelot, slowly lowering himself down on the chair. Lancelot nods hesitantly and trades a loaded look with Gaius.

“One of the women, a friend of hers apparently, said that she went missing last week, a few days before Merlin was…” He trails off and they all glance at the sleeping (magical) baby in the cradle. He looks so peaceful, so quiet, when his eyes are shut. And yet, when they are open, they are bright. Sometimes with magic, sometimes with sunlight and— sometimes with something else that he can’t quite pinpoint or explain, even inside his own head.

Arthur huffs and trails a hand through his hair. He studies the baby, so defenseless, yet so powerful because of that… unnaturalness, and sighs.

“I don’t know…” _I don’t know what to do._ “I can’t just throw him to the wolves.” The baby opens his eyes, this time blue, and grabs Arthur fingers that were resting by his cradle before he can pull his hand away. There’s an uncomfortable feeling in his chest, as if something inside of him was commanding him to protect this magical child, and he tries to ignore it.

The words come tumbling off his lips before he can stop them – “I’ll go to the druids tomorrow and ask them to take him in for me… until we figure out how to undo this curse.”

After all, father had to have forbidden magic in Camelot for a reason.

* * *

_Would you have shown mercy to a baby convicted of sorcery?_ Arthur wonders silently as he talks aloud about the tension building between Camelot, Bayard’s kingdom, and Essetir to the father who is lost in his own mind.

He thinks he already knows the answer. After all, he’d been ready to condemn Gaius, his oldest friend, to burn…

Arthur’s not sure he has the strength to do the same thing to Merlin. He has magic, yes, and magic is wrong and evil and _unnatural –_

But…

He realizes that he’s stopped talking when his father looks at him, and he sighs before he apologizes and begins to speak again.

…Merlin was his oldest, _closest,_ friend, not that he’d say that to his face; the fool would never let him forget it. Surely that had to count for something, even if that friendship had been built on a stone foundation made from lie after lie after lie.

He’s only an infant too. Even though infants don’t stay infants forever, he knows he cannot _kill_ a child in cold blood, and it did not matter if it had magic or not.

What was more important—his conscious or protecting his country from the evils of sorcery?

Could he really live with himself if he turned on his best friend when he was so _vulnerable_?

* * *

The druid leader looks at him with steady, solemn eyes. The baby uses magic to play with the brown leaves dusting the ground, creating Pendragon crests and galloping horses and rearing unicorns with them.

“We cannot take him into our numbers, Prince Arthur. His destiny lies with yours.”

“Then what can I do?” Arthur asks desperately, not even really registering the last statement. He cannot take this clearly magical child back with him to the heart of Camelot. He’ll be killed there if his father ever finds out. And he can’t condemn a child to death – especially if that child was once his friend. And yet, that is exactly what he _should_ do, by his father’s own laws. But he just couldn’t bring himself to execute this child for some reason he couldn’t understand – or maybe he didn’t _want_ to understand his reasoning, so he didn’t examine it. “I can’t take him back with me to Camelot. He’ll be killed!”

“Are you not the future king, Prince Arthur?” Suddenly, the druid’s eyes are sharp enough to pierce through the trunk of those great oaks and sycamores. “Is it not within your power to change the laws?”

“I can’t undo something my father spent his whole life trying to bring to fruition,” he replies. “Not for one man – one baby.”

“Not even when it’s wrong?”

Arthur hesitates. The baby yawns and reaches up for him, blinking big blue eyes up at him.

“Magic corrupted my sister.”

“Your sister was corrupted by her own fear and by listening to the wrong people.”

Merlin gurgles. Arthur wonders how such a happy sound can come from somebody who has magic. Somebody who is so _vulnerable_. How can somebody who has magic be vulnerable?

“Are there more people like him?” he asks, startling himself. “Who were born with magic?”

“Not quite like Emrys, no.” The druid shakes his head. “But magic chooses a few and develops within them.”

“Like Morgana?”

The druid’s gaze shutters and closes to him, so Arthur can’t read his expressions, but he nods. “Like the Dark Witch.”

Huh. Even in magic, there was a distinction between light and darkness; good and evil.

How peculiar. 

* * *

“Arthur,” the physician begins heavily, pulling Arthur away from his attempt of ignoring the cooing child as it wriggles underneath the table. He points to a paragraph and Arthur reads it over his shoulder, very much aware of the baby tugging on the hem of his pants.

When he’s done, he exhales slowly.

“There’s no cure,” Gaius summarizes out loud. “Not for this – Morgana has de-aged her greatest foe through the work of the Cailleach. She’s made him vulnerable.”

“She’s going to try to kill Merlin,” he says. He picks the baby up and settles him on his hip. Merlin giggles and Arthur jerks his chin away from his slimy hands as he tries to swipe them across his face. Instead, small hands wipe against Arthur’s collarbone and he gags. “Ick! _Mer_ lin!”

Merlin grins at him lopsidedly and toothlessly, and Arthur shakes his head at him. “You,” he drawls, “are the absolute _worst_ and you know it _._ ” Then he turns back to Gaius. “There has to be a cure somewhere. Somehow. We’ve pulled through so many incurable things—”

“You’ve always had Merlin’s magic to aid you.” interrupted Gaius. “This time, he’s as defenseless as you are.”

“I can’t protect him like this forever.”

“Yes, you can. If you take him in as your ward.”

Arthur blinks. “Father wouldn’t approve.”

“Then take Merlin in as your _personal_ ward.”

Merlin wriggles and he lets him down. “You know I can’t do that,” he tells Gaius.

“Why not?”

He gestures at Merlin. “He has _magic._ ”

“And?”

“Magic is banned!”

“But you can lift the ban.”

Arthur shakes his head. “No. You know I can’t lift the ban on magic.”

But later, when he’s alone in his chambers and George, who is practically invisible anyway, has left, he wonders why that ban is there in the first place.

It couldn’t have been there forever, surely.

* * *

“You know what I’m worried about?” Arthur hears Sir Lancelot say, and he ducks behind a pillar. Guinevere is watching Merlin as she tidies Gaius’ shelf of poisons when the physician is out. “Morgana has to have a reason for this, though why she’d chose to turn him into a _baby_ of all things _..._ ”

“Well, babies are unable to protect themselves,” she replies. “Maybe she wanted him helpless.”

“She’s going to kill him.”

“Over my dead body,” Guinevere hisses, and Arthur takes half a step back at the venom in her voice. “I won’t let Morgana take away my best friend from me too.”

Except … she already has, hasn’t she? That baby is Merlin, but at the same time, he’s _not_. He’s not going to grow up under Hunith’s tender, watchful care. He’s going to have different experiences that shape him into a different person. Even if they somehow, miraculously, find a way to undo all this, it won’t be the same. Merlin has _magic._ And Arthur knows it now.

He peaks around the corner and pretends he doesn’t see the soft look in Guinevere’s eyes as she watches Sir Lancelot tease the baby as he pulls him away from the hot poker— “Be careful, you’re not supposed to play with fire.”

There’s something in his stomach that doesn’t quite sit right as he turns away.

* * *

_Why does father hate magic so much anyway?_ Arthur wonders as he keeps one eye on Merlin, who is crawling around his chambers (Gwaine was an idiot for trying to watch a baby while half-drunk and he didn’t trust him not to be a bad influence on Merlin), and his hand glides over the parchment, signing with practiced ease. _If someone like Merlin, who has always protected me, has magic then … surely it can’t be_ all _evil._

He freezes. Those thoughts are treasonous, but they need an answer. _He_ needs an answer. From someone who isn’t directly related to Merlin; from someone who has also seen magic before father’s Purge.

From whom, though, is the question.

* * *

The answer comes to him with startling clarity in the middle of the night a couple of days later.

* * *

“Lord Geoffrey,” he begins, feeling a little uneasy. If this gets back to his father, what he’s about to ask for, _do_ …. But he shakes his head. He has to know. He can’t just blindly follow his father’s word on this anymore, no matter how much he wishes he could. Surely there has to be more to magic than what meets the eye if a _baby_ can use it. “Are there… Are there any books about magic? From before the Purge?”

Lord Geoffrey looks at him with startled eyes at first, but then something inside of them seems to sharpen. Arthur wants to shuffle his feet under his gaze like he used to when he was a boy under his tutelage, but he forces himself to stand his ground. Surely, if he is to be king, he has a right to understand what it is that he is fighting against.

He doesn’t want to be a king who is blinded by his own fear and ignorance.

“Why do you want them?”

For a split-second, he almost says that he wants to burn them, to eradicate all existence of magic, in case it gets back to his father. If his father ever wakes up from his unaware, practically comatose state. But then he thinks that maybe that isn’t the right answer. That he shouldn’t lie about this. That he should take the first step forward, take the higher road, and tell the truth, no matter how treasonous it might be.

So that is what he does, despite that it goes against every survival instinct he possesses.

“I want to understand it. I can’t just blindly accept my father’s word that all magic is evil – that it has to be destroyed – anymore. Not when…” he stops himself before he can say _Not when my best friend is a sorcerer. Not when a baby has magic._ If his father finds out, then he won’t let anyone take the fall for or with him. “Not when I know _nothing_ about it.”

Lord Geoffrey’s eyes are suspiciously bright, and Arthur hopes that he doesn’t start crying. _That_ would be awkward.

“I’ve waited for this day a long time,” he says, and he turns around. Arthur follows him and the old man stops by a floorboard. Arthur realizes he’s going to kneel by it – it must be loose – and he moves to stop him. He’s heard Gaius complain about achy knees enough to know that kneeling can’t help him _at all._

“No, it’s all right. I can lift it for you.” He settles down on his knees, and he worms his fingers underneath the board. It comes up easily and Arthur spies three leather-bound books. “Are these…?”

A nod, and Arthur gingerly lifts them into his arms before letting the plank fall again.

“They were your mother’s.” Arthur nearly drops them as he meets Lord Geoffrey’s eyes. His gaze is distant, as if he is looking at something far away. _My mother’s?_ “She loved magic and the pursuit of knowledge. She was here whenever she had a chance.”

“Really?” he asks. Something inside his chest feels heavy even though he feels so incredibly happy to know something about his mother. Father never talked about her. Everybody else was too scared. But here was something important that he finally learned – something that might be fundamental to the woman who had died giving birth to him.

“Of course.”

He cradles the tomes against his chest as he stands. Dust tickles his nostrils and the leather feels slightly cracked, but these books feel more precious to him than the countless treasures that sit in the vaults beneath the castle. These were his _mother’s._ They were a tangible part of her that he could touch. They weren’t something he’d imagined.

“Thank you,” he says, and he’s never meant those simple words more. Lord Geoffrey smiles. And then he promises, before he can really think it over, “I’ll be back.”

* * *

So, Arthur ends up thumbing through his mother’s books every chance he gets. One of the books is a journal of sorts, mostly about her observations of magic, though an occasional spell littered the pages here and there to “show Nim,” whoever that was. The second was a book of spells and the third was about the history of the Old Ways as she called it, before the people started to convert to Christianity.

* * *

_Would Morgana have ended up the way she has if someone had listened to her all those years ago?_ It’s a question that has always haunted him, but now it has more weight. Maybe, if he hadn’t always blindly followed their father…

But no— _Merlin_ has always believed in him. Even when he had been nothing but a self-righteous _prat,_ he had stood by his side. They hadn’t even been friends in the beginning, and yet he had saved his life by moving him out of the way of that falling chandelier.

 _Probably using magic,_ he realizes with a snort.

He wonders what he had done in a past life to deserve such blind faith.

If Merlin, who he had barely known at the time, had believed in him, then why couldn’t Morgana, who he had considered family before he had known of their true blood relation, have given him the same benefit of the doubt? Why did Merlin trust him while Morgana hadn’t?

She had claimed that he would have turned her in if he had known, but she didn’t give him a _chance_ to prove her right. She had just blindly assumed and use that as justification for her senseless hatred.

Maybe she was more like their father than he had realized. She was so blinded by her own views and perceptions of the world that she couldn’t see it for how it really was…

Something inside of him aches, and he rocks Merlin’s cradle when the baby begins stirring, his eyes not seeing the words written in his mother’s hand. He didn’t want to be like them. He didn’t want to be remembered with fear when he passed away. When he was king, he wanted to be known for his compassion and fairness—not for his ignorance and paranoia.

His father and Morgana ware both feared equally in different ways by different people. Which meant that he couldn’t do the same thing as them—but they stood for the opposing thing, so what is the right path?

What did _he_ want? What was the right thing to do?

He missed Merlin’s words of level-headed advice. He always had a way with words that gently pointed him toward the path that he was looking for.

* * *

“Morgana is going to come back,” Sir Percival says when the conversation at the round table has died down and everyone has sat. “What are you going to do about that?”

“Give her what she wants. She thinks she can just take away Merlin from us? Then let’s take away her magic.” Sir Gwaine’s grin is bordering on feral, and for some reason, something about that suggestion makes Arthur feel uncomfortable. He’s not even sure if they _can_ strip sorcerers of their magic. And even if they could, he’s not sure that he _wants_ to.

Still, Morgana is dangerous; he can’t afford to allow sentimentality to cloud his judgement just like he can’t allow fear to cloud it.

“How?” asks Sir Lancelot. There’s a long pause.

“There was a dragon living in the beneath Camelot for at least twenty years, if not more.” Sir Leon speaks slowly, and Arthur has an idea of where this is going in the back of his mind. “There must have been something chaining him to the ground or constraining his magic.” They hear the untold _someone must have freed him,_ and Arthur suddenly remembers Merlin’s guilt stricken words and expressions from years past. He remembers how the dragon supposedly died, and he suddenly wonders if the beast actually _was_ dead _._ “If there hadn’t, the beast would have left long before he actually had.”

* * *

And so, that is how Arthur ends up going down into the dragon’s den. It should have been scarier than it was, and he shouldn’t feel this guilty because he had done nothing to that magnificent beast personally. In fact, it had _harmed_ Camelot (and that was something that made him feel terrible because he was going to see where a magical creature lived against his father’s wishes; he was breaking his own _law)_. It mostly just felt strange.

It is even stranger that the chains looked like it had been cut with a sword. Arthur isn’t sure why or how, but he has a feeling that magic is at work here. Maybe it’s Merlin’s ‘funny feelings’ rubbing off on him now that he wasn’t here to tell him much anymore.

He’s not sure if that alarms him or if it just makes him feel sad. It’s almost like the Merlin he knows – or knew – had died and was gone forever.

But it was too depressing to look at it that way, and besides, there was probably some way to fix it. He just had to get Morgana to cough up the way to reverse it.

At this point, he’d do anything to get the idiot back.

He wonders who had a hand in the dragon’s destruction of Camelot—Merlin, or Morgana.

* * *

In retrospect, Arthur should have realized that Morgana would have gone after their father earlier, but the idea never crossed his mind until it was too late to stop her. When two of the younger guards burst into his private chambers, panicking and saying something about a sorceress in the king’s bedchambers, Arthur curses himself for not thinking of this sooner. Of course Morgana would go for his father—Merlin wasn’t a problem to her anymore! She wouldn’t target him until the other Pendragons were dead and she could take her crown.

By the time he had skidded to a halt right outside of them though, it’s too late to save his father. One of her spells ricochets and hits him right in the center of his chest as Arthur throws open the chambers, and—

Nothing happens.

There was no pain, no sensation, nothing. Morgana stares at him, and Arthur sees his own shock reflected in her eyes back at him for a moment. But then the moment is shattered and she shrieks in fury about how _Emrys_ is still undermining her despite the enchantment working. Arthur jumps to the side as another spell seems to fly out of her chest, green and sickly looking, and the polished, silver shield melts like the wax of a lit candle.

Arthur yells at the guards to get Lancelot or Gwaine or Leon, because they have the keys to the melted down and re-forged cuffs that suppressed magic Elyan created, before he goes back to taunting Morgana and avoiding her magic. She doesn’t even use her sword, and it’s like she doesn’t even think about the best way to take him down. Madness make her eyes blaze and his muscles ache from exertion, but then Gwaine arrives with Percival on his heels, and the battle turns to their favor.

In a move that is truly inspired and reveals his cleverness (or drunkenness or stupidity, he’s not sure), Gwaine tells Percival and Arthur to sneak up on Morgana as he distracts her. By calling her names and insulting her beauty. While dancing.

Arthur can’t help but stare at him for a moment before he jumps into action and grabs the second cuff, beautifully detailed and thin like a bracelet for some reason, and when Morgana throws her arm out to cast her magic, he takes the chance and clips it around her wrist before he leaps back. She _shrieks_ as she stumbles, and Percival clasps the second one, as the magic splutters out.

He sighs when it’s over and commands Leon, Elyan and Lancelot to take her down to the dungeons.

* * *

Arthur isn’t sure how to feel after Morgana’s attack. His father’s condition, already so precarious, deteriorated within the end of the month, and soon, Arthur sees nothing but a dying man haunted by mistakes he had made and transgressions he had committed. He hates seeing him like this. His father has always been so _strong—_ and though he didn’t always agree with him, he had done what he had perceived was best for Camelot.

He pulls away from his mother’s journal when he hears a coughing fit, and reaches blindly for the glass of water, tilting his father’s head up with his hand so that he can sip it. His cheeks are so sallow and his eyes are so cloudy, and it twists his heart to see him so frail.

“That was… your mother’s… diary?” His breathing is labored as he pushes himself into a sitting position, eyes fixed on the journal, but he sounds surprisingly lucid. He hesitates and then he nods.

“I found it in the library when I was looking for something… I didn’t realize it was hers at first, but I couldn’t stop when I did.” He isn’t going tell his father about the content inside the journal, and he _definitely_ isn’t going to tell him why he had it in the first place, but he doesn’t want to _not_ give him an explanation. It’s been a long time since he had last seen him this lucid, but he knows he was going to withdraw further into himself whenever this bout passed.

His father smiles, and there is something like affection on his face. “You take after her more than me. Sometimes, I think I can see her when I look into your eyes.” A shadow passes over his face. “I wish sorcery had never taken her from us. She would have adored you.” 

Arthur can’t quite meet his father’s eyes, so he drops his gaze and runs his fingers over her handwriting, feeling the indentions in the parchment paper. He wonders what had happened that night he was born. Apparently, there is a balance in magic that has to be kept. His mother had known somebody’s life would be taken for his, but she, too, had presumed it would not be hers… and his father had known about the price.

“I wish I’d known her.”

“I do too.” His father sighs, and Arthur slowly raises his eyes. “I’m proud of you, my son. I know you’ll be a good king.”

He chews his bottom lip. “I—I don’t think I’m ready. Please, don’t go…”

His father holds his arm out, and he hesitates before he put his book to the side and crawls next to him, closing his eyes as the dying man embraced him like he was a child once again suffering from a night terror. His eyes sting and he feels the grief that had been lurking at the edges of his mind and heart begin to creep in.

“I’m tired and I want to see Ygraine again, Arthur. It’s your time.”

Part of him, the child inside that put his father on the pedestal, who saw him as invincible and right, wants to rage at him for saying he wanted to leave him. How is he supposed to rule his father’s country without his guidance when he needed it? Who was going to love him unconditionally even if he didn’t necessarily _like_ him? What if he needed to ask him for advice and he wasn’t there?

But he doesn’t rage.

He doesn’t want him to go to the beyond, or heaven, or wherever it was that the dead go, but _Uther Pendragon_ doesn’t want to live anymore. He had lived a long life and he was ready to go to sleep—forever. Was it selfish or selfless for Arthur to let him go? He didn’t know. He didn’t understand. Either way, he didn’t have the right to judge his father. All he could do was accept his decision.

“…Okay.”

Several hours later, King Uther Pendragon passes in his sleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

After Arthur was crowned king and the mourning period for his father had passed, he visits Morgana. A wave of deja-vu washes over him as he walks through the West Corridor of the castle that had been closed off to everyone after she had betrayed them. If he closes his eyes, he could pretend that he was several years younger and he was going to Morgana’s chambers in a huff to argue with her over something. Probably over his treatment of his servants.

But he doesn’t close his eyes.

He’s surprised when he sees Guinevere slam the doors close behind her, a truly frightening, foreign expression painted across her face for her kind features. She takes his arm with a grasp as hard as iron and pulls him to the side, shaking her head as her curls dances around her shoulders wildly.

“She’s horrible. I’ve tried and I’ve tried to be patient and kind _but…_ ”

Arthur puts his hand over hers. “I’ll talk to her. I came here to talk to her.” About Merlin, yes. As the months slip by and Merlin stops crawling and begins stumbling around, he’s beginning to lose hope that there will ever be a way to reverse the curse she placed on him. But she was the one who cast it in the first place— she _must_ know how to undo it.

If she was sane enough to look for the counter-curse.

“I don’t think I can do this, Arthur. She hates me and I remember how kind she once was and then I _hate_ what she’s become, and there’s too many memories and I _don’t…_ ”

“Okay,” he says gently. “I’m sorry for...” But he doesn’t know how to say _expecting so much out of you_ politely, so he doesn’t finish his sentence. She pulls away and he walks into Morgana’s old chambers, closing the door behind her.

She still looks like the half-mad sorceress and not the girl he had grown up with, which is both easier and harder for him to disengage from the girl who occupied these chambers in his head. He cuts straight to the point of his visit, because he understands what Guinevere meant by this place having too many memories attached to it. “How do you fix him, Morgana?”

Morgana grins and her eyes are lit with a manic sort of glee as she stands. It startles him to realize that he is at least half a head taller than she was. The last time he had stood close enough to her, she had been the taller one between the two of them. “Fix whom?”

“Merlin.” He crosses his arms, unwilling to play along with her games. Her eyes widen, and he wonders if she hadn’t meant for Merlin to be caught up in her magic.

“Merlin?” she says, half to herself. “But my greatest foe is Emrys… why would Merlin be affected by my magic?”

He keeps his mouth shut against the impulse to goad her. _Maybe because Merlin has magic too?_ “Why would he?” He pauses when her gaze meets his, and he raises an eyebrow at her. “Perhaps your magic is failing you.”

“My magic is the only thing I _have left,_ ” she hisses, her eyes blazing as she leans up right to his face. He tilts his back away from her even though he keeps his feet planted on the ground firmly, unwilling to allow her to touch him. “What do you know of magic anyway? All you want to do is burn us all at the pyre.”

He clamps down hard on the impulse to shout at her and breathes through his nose. “How do I reverse your curse, Morgana?”

She sneers at him. “I used the power of the Cailleach on Salheim’s eve. There is no magic strong enough to combat it. Therefore, there is no cure.”

Figures.

He turns on his heel and begins to storm out of room, before he can lose him temper. The girl he’d known was gone; she would have been horrified to know how far she had gone down this path of misery and self-destruction.

“Arthur?” Suddenly, Morgana’s voice was small, and he turned to look at her. Her eyebrows had knitted together, and there was something on her face. He might have called it regret but it was too haughty. “Arthur, I’m sorry.”

“Why did you do it?” he asked quietly. “You caused so much destruction and sorrow. Even other practitioners of magic fear you.”

“You would have had me killed. I couldn’t trust you with my people.”

He shook his head. “You tried to free your people, but you became just like our father in the end.” He almost pitied her. She had been so kind, so compassionate, once. She could have done so much _good_ if she hadn’t allowed her fear to twist her intentions and change her so much.

“I’m sorry, too.”

* * *

“Why, Gaius?” Arthur can’t quite meet the old physician’s eyes, so he studies the baby sleeping in the cradle by the fire. It’s funny – Merlin sleeps so much now when, earlier, he practically seemed to live without sleep. And he’s so _squishy_. And he looks so fragile even though he really isn’t, if he can stand and stumble and fall and then stand up again without batting an eye. He’s never been around babies much, but even he knows that the amount of trepidation he feels around this child is more than normal.

“What did I do?”

“Not you – Merlin.” He forces himself to meet his gaze. He wants the truth and he won’t receive it like a coward. “Why would Merlin do all of this,” – He gestures with his hands, trying to indicate the whole since he does not know how to find the right words – “for me?

Gaius’ gaze slides away and lands on the baby. “Because you were his friend. He believed in you.”

“Do you think he would still? If he was the same? As before?”

There is no hesitation. “I have no doubt.”

Arthur leaves soon after that, confused and unsettled by Gaius’ certainty in Merlin’s faith. He doesn’t understand his single-minded devotion.

There’s a lot of things he doesn’t understand about Merlin, and his relationship to Morgana was one of them.

* * *

“They’re threatening us?” Arthur scowls as the parchment sealed with King Bayard’s sigil, declaring war on Camelot. Three kingdoms, all threatening to march into his borders to conquer his people and take his land… “Openly?”

“They believe Camelot is weak,” Leon says, quietly. Arthur looks at him. There’s an odd note in his tone that he hears, and he hopes that he’s interrupting it incorrectly.

“Do you believe they are right?”

The slight pause is enough to tell Arthur exactly what he thinks, and his heart sinks to his feet. His first knight, the second in command of Camelot, and he thought they were weak. Leon nods hesitantly, and that is what surprises him. He didn’t expect him to actually _acknowledge_ his doubts. “Sire, with all due respect, your father did not pass on… peacefully. Even when kings leave naturally, as they intend, the passing of the crown is never a stable time. For _any_ kingdom.”

Arthur contemplates his words. There is truth in them, though he does not want to hear it.

“It’s not just Camelot they’re threatening.” Leon points at the kingdom next to Camelot on the map. “Nemeth too.”

Perhaps they could create an alliance—between both of their armies, they could drive the enemies back. United, they stood, but divided they would fall. But there would be bloodshed on both sides of the conflict, anyway he considered it…

* * *

He’s found another one of his mother’s journals in his father’s chest as he was emptying it. It was much closer to a diary than a journal about magic, and he finds sketches of people he doesn’t know and her opinions of magic as well as a few… encounters with his father after they married that he quickly skips over.

It had been a political match. His father had been trying to gather allies to conquer Camelot, and so he had married the Lady Ygraine. But it had eventually developed into a deep love…

He looks up at the sky, his finger resting on the yellowed, brittle pages of the journal as the wind teases his hair. A political match to gather allies… He’s beginning to grow desperate as their enemies close in. Merlin might have magic to drive them back without blood being shed, but _Arthur_ doesn’t and he doesn’t want his people lose their lives. There’s no way he’s going to give Camelot to Lot and Bayard because they’re despicable men who will harm his people.

It is not violence he wants, it is peace.

“You’re looking like you’re planning something drastic.” Sir Lancelot sits down beside him sometime later, holding out a flash of mead. Arthur closes the diary and takes a gulp from it as Gwaine flops down next to him, flipping his hair back. “Want to talk about it?”

Arthur chuckles, feeling some invisible pressure closing in on him as the alcohol warms his throat and his stomach. “Merlin would kill me.”

“Merlin ain’t here, princess.” Gwaine tips his drink at him and Sir Lancelot sips at it. “So we got to stop you from being an idiot.”

“At least I’m not being reckless over it.”

“Very good.” Gwaine claps patronizingly. “But it doesn’t stop you from being an idiot.”

“That was Merlin’s job.” But Merlin isn’t here to take his idiocy from him and be his voice of reason, so Arthur allows his shoulders to slump. “I think I’m going to have to arrange a marriage with Princess Mithian, King Rodar’s only child.”

Sir Lancelot stiffens. Gwaine swears under his breath. “You’ll break Gwen’s heart,” Lancelot says quietly, and Arthur has been trying not to think about that. He’s always believed he’ll be able to marry for love. Arranged marriages were made for convenience.

This wasn’t convenience. This was necessity.

“I know,” he says quietly. “I can’t see a way around it.”

Gwaine silently hands over his flask and Arthur gulps down half of it, knowing that only his loyalist knights and Merlin will be able to find this place if they need him.

* * *

Big blue eyes blink up at him, and Arthur lifts the baby into his arms. Too much, too fast, too soon. He’s not old enough to be a king yet. He’s probably not old enough to have a child dependent on him. Definitely not old enough for any of this. 

“I wish you were still… you,” he says, half to himself. But this isn’t Merlin. Not the Merlin he’s come to know— That Merlin lives in his memories now, because this baby will grow up in different circumstances. This child won’t be his best friend in the way he once was. This child will be the ward of a king, if this goes according to plan. 

…He’ll probably be the only father figure the boy will ever know.

“You never make things easy, do you, Merlin?” he asks, not expecting an answer. Merlin just looks at him with steady eyes that still are full of unwavering trust. Arthur can’t help but smile at how familiar that expression is.

Maybe not everything about this child is different from the man he’d known.

“Then again, you wouldn’t be you if you did.”

* * *

Arthur takes a deep breath as he takes Guinevere’s hands with his own.

“What is it, Arthur?” she asks. They sit, and he’s not quite sure how to begin.

“You know I love you, right?”

Guinevere frowns. “Of course I do.” There is a slight pause. “I love you too.”

And she’s telling the truth – He can see that. But there is guilt swirling in her beautiful brown eyes, and he can see it clearly now that he’s looking for it.

He squeezes her hand and then he pulls it out of her grasp. She doesn’t chase, and he doesn’t seek. “I... Camelot is in a perilous position. I can’t be selfish like I want to be. Not when a whole kingdom is at stake.” _Please understand. Don’t make me say it._

“I don’t understand,” she says. “What are you–” and then she stops. “An arranged marriage?” He nods hesitantly. “But Arthur – you’ve always wanted to marry for love.”

He nods at that too. “Yes,” he says. “But three kingdoms – _large,_ powerful kingdoms – are threatening Camelot. What I want… it doesn’t matter. Camelot needs it. If King Rodor and I merge our kingdoms’ armies, we’ll be powerful enough to drive them back.”

She studies her hands, and then she nods slowly. “Okay,” she says. Arthur isn’t expecting her to agree so easily. He almost feels hurt that he didn’t need to argue with her after agonizing over this for so many nights. “Okay then.” She stands and makes for the door, but not before Arthur reaches out and grasps her hand. She looks at him. Her eyes brim with tears, and he swallows at the sight.

“I’m sorry.” _I want this but I can’t have it._

“I am too,” she replies. Then she flees.

* * *

Merlin looks up at him with wide, concerned eyes as Arthur slides against the ground. He’s not sure why there’s a crawling, active baby alone in his chambers, but he can’t bring himself to feel angry. He’s just grateful as he scoops him off the ground and plants him on his lap. It’s like there’s this giant hole in his chest that he can’t ignore.

“You would have been so mad,” he says with a shaky laugh at how strange that sounds. It hadn’t been him who thought he could marry for love at first – It had been Merlin. Merlin, who had stood by his side all those years, unacknowledged even though his devotion had been the strongest. Even though he had been his greatest friend all these years— and his first. “You spent years trying to convince us to go against the tide, and yet here I am, giving it all up for a slim possibility.”

Merlin blinks.

 _And you can’t do anything about it,_ he realizes. He can’t talk him around in circles anymore – or berate him for being foolish, or tell him that yes, he _can_ marry Guinevere. He’s not … if he makes him his ward …

There’s no going back from here.

And there’s no cure – Morgana made sure of that. If he doesn’t take him in, then Merlin won’t have _anyone._ Even his mother is gone. God only knows what happened to his father. And he can’t let that happen to Merlin, not if he has spent so much time protecting him, guiding him … shaping him into the man he is now.

He loved his father, and he always will, but he doesn’t think he can follow in his footsteps when it comes to magic. Not after seeing Merlin perform things that should be impossible without any malicious intentions.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” he promises. “I don’t have much control over my own life, Camelot comes first, _always_ … but I can do that much at least.”

* * *

Of course, there’s still thing he has to do – He wants to understand Merlin as much as he possibly can. He also wants to know what his new bride’s views of magic are, whenever she arrives because, alliance or not, he’s not going to put Merlin in danger. It’s the least he can do after all he’s done for him. It’s not because he’s beginning to feel attached or, heaven forbid, _protective_ over the child. He’s just repaying an old debt.

At least, he that’s what tells himself.

So, he goes to Gaius and asks a question.

“How much has Merlin done for me?”

It’s more than a little overwhelming. Several times, Arthur has to walk away (or, well, storm out, more often than not if he was honest with himself—which he _isn’t_ ) to try to wrap his mind around some insane act of loyalty or a transgression, only to come back later for more. Without any prodding on his account, Gaius – and sometimes Lancelot, when he’s there with them and Arthur prods – tells him about each accomplishment.

Eventually, he even begins to feel like Merlin hadn’t completely lied to him, that their friendship hadn’t been built on a web of lies. There were many things that had been left out, and Arthur still thinks that he should have told him earlier, but he can’t put all the blame on his shoulders when _he_ never tried to look beneath the surface.

There were so many layers to his friend; he was a complex man. He was hopeful but he was cracked and brittle around the edges too, and maybe a little broken inside. He put too much stock in the words that a dragon told him that might not even pass. He was a good man who had done evil things, and Arthur could read between the lines and see the self-hatred in every action he took.

It was remarkable, how similar he and Morgana truly were. There was so much darkness in his life, and he walked a line so razor thin that he stepped over it several times, but he always came back to the light because he had believed in _him,_ in _Arthur._ He wished he hadn’t been so blind, or that Merlin had been able to tell him himself, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

He’s not sure where his devotion comes from; where duty ends and friendship begins, but that’s fine and Arthur thinks he can learn to accept that one day. He doesn’t want this infant to have the same darkness in his life. 

It’s not long until the day that Princess Mithian arrives, and he’s surprised by her beauty.

* * *

“Hello there,” Princess Mithian coos at the baby, who stares at her with wide blue eyes. She sits in front of him and waves her fingers a little. Merlin smiles a gummy smile, and Arthur notices that his front teeth are coming in. “You’re a happy one, aren’t you?”

Merlin giggles and says something in that language that Arthur has taken to calling Baby Babble in his head (of course Merlin would be a talkative baby). He leans against the wall in Gaius’ chambers and watches them.

“I’m going to take him in as my ward. When the time is right.” One thing at a time. He’s sure isn’t going to tell her about his magic until he knows her stance on it, but he can tell her this at least. “He’s related to a friend of mine who… is gone. He has no family left.”

Mithian looks surprised, and then she looks at Merlin. “This friend must have meant a lot to you, if you’re going to take in a relative of his as your ward.”

Arthur watches Merlin, who watches him back steadily. Sometimes, he sees his old friend in their depths still. He hopes he’s not all gone…

“He was my best friend,” he says, “though I never told him that to his face.”

Merlin belches. Arthur pulls a face at him. Merlin makes the face back at him, startling him. But of course he would– this is _Merlin._ He can’t help but laugh a little.

“I’m sure he knew,” she says. Arthur smiles at her, though it doesn’t feel genuine.

“I should have told him.”

Mithian shrugs one shoulder. “He’s gone now. All you can do is make sure that this child is loved.”

He thinks of Gwaine’s protective playfulness, Gaius’ watchful eyes, and Lancelot’s gentle smile. He sees Guinevere bouncing him on his hip in Gaius’ chambers whenever they’re in the same room. He remembers how Percival tickles him and how Elyan makes him laugh, and how Leon no longer jumps whenever he uses magic around him. Even the servants adore him, and he’s caught the foul tempered cook sneak him warm milk once.

“He already is.”

* * *

Sometimes, he mentions magic around Mithian, to see if she hates it like most do in Camelot. He _won’t_ let Merlin grow up being hated, not if he has any say in it. At first, she doesn’t say much in favor of it, but she doesn’t say anything negative about it either. But soon, when he mentions casually that he’s read books on it, she opens up – and he’s surprised by how neutral she is toward it.

He doesn’t tell her about Merlin’s though, even though he’s pretty sure she won’t try to kill him. He doesn’t really want her to know, though he can’t quite pinpoint why.

* * *

Merlin has other ideas.

* * *

There is a gasp.

Arthur jumps and follows Mithian’s gaze to—

Merlin catches his floating dragon carving with a giggle, his eyes turning back to blue.

For a moment, they just stare at the baby, and then Arthur pivots in front of him automatically, arms spread as if to protect him from an invisible enemy, some instinct driving him forward before he can fully understand it. 

“Mithian,” he begins.

“Arthur,” she says very, very calmly. “That baby just used magic.”

“I know,” he says. “He’s not dangerous.”

Mithian’s eyebrow furrow together. “Of course he’s not dangerous, he’s just a baby.” She continues on before he can get a word in edgewise. “How did he do it, though? As far as I’m aware nobody can use magic that young.”

Arthur blinks. “You’re not going to hurt him?”

“Going to hurt– What do you take me for? I’m not a _monster_. This is just a child. If it’s anyone who should be asking, it should be _me_ asking _you._ And how did he use magic anyway?”

Merlin coos happily at the dragon.

“I… don’t know, really.” He says, watching Merlin. Relief rushes through him. “He’s just different.”

There’s a look in her eyes that he can’t quite place, one that makes him feel… Well, it wasn’t exactly unease. It’s more like alertness. “I can see that.”

* * *

The wedding is a grand affair. Kings are invited from lands far and near. The people are excited, for the Princess Mithian is a lovely person. The knights are tense, ready for an unexpected attack. King Arthur is nervous. Princess – and then Queen – Mithian is relieved when it’s over.

* * *

“Did Merlin have a family name?” he asks Gaius as he plays with Merlin’s toes some time later when he’s taken ill. “I don’t remember him mentioning one.”

Gaius studies him, and he pushes his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. “I think it was Ambrosius.”

The name is familiar to him for some reason, and Arthur rolls it on his tongue carefully. It fits Merlin. It sounds mysterious, and it feels weighty, and Merlin is nothing if not mysterious.

* * *

“So, the kings have retracted from our borders?” Arthur makes sure he understands Sir Leon clearly. Sir Leon smiles, and there is something like relief on his face.

“It looks like they have. King Odin sent his congratulations on the marriage.”

He’d done it. It had been a long shot, but blood wasn’t spilled.

* * *

It’s not long after the news that Arthur sends out an official announcement: His new ward’s name is Merlin Ambrosius.

Oddly enough, most seem more surprised over the surname he had given him than the fact that he took a relative – most said it was the son – of Merlin’s, and Arthur wondered what it’s significance was.

(Eventually, while going over old records on a quiet, rainy day, he realizes that Balinor Ambrosius had been a lord of dragons who had helped his father conquer Camelot.)

* * *

As the months slip by and Arthur settles more into his role as king, Merlin grows from stumbling every time he stood to tripping over his two left feet. He’s secretly amazed at how quickly the child learns new words and recognizes people.

But he’s not so much amazed when Merlin comes up to him with a giggle. “Pa,” he declares, looking up at him with his big blue eyes, and Arthur’s mind comes to a screeching halt. He isn’t his father. This is his best friend. He _didn’t want to be his father!_

Mithian laughs as she picks Merlin up, settling him on her hip though she sends him a sympathetic glance. “Yes, that’s your papa.”

Sometimes, he forgets that this isn’t his old friend, especially when he does something familiar or if he smiles at him cheekily. But it was times like these that he can’t mistake it.

He forces a smile on his face as he takes the toddler from his wife’s arms and wonders why he feels like the Merlin he had known had just died.

“Pa?” Tiny fists clench his tunic, and Arthur cradles his head reflexively, exchanging a glance with Mithian.

“No,” he says gently, despite the way his eyes burn. “Papa’s happy.”

He tightens his arms around Merlin, and Mithian turns away, and he _hates_ Morgana for doing this to him.

* * *

“My name is Mordred and I’d like to become a knight of Camelot, if you’ll have me.”

Arthur doesn’t know why this young man seems so familiar to him, but there is a wiry strength in his shoulders and arms. “You’ll have to prove yourself,” he warns him. Mordred smiles slightly, eyes bright.

“Thank you, sire.”

* * *

“Who dat?” asks Merlin, half hiding behind Arthur as he looks up at Mordred, craning his head back. Arthur ruffles his hair, but he doesn’t miss the wide-eyed look Mordred is giving Merlin.

“Who is that,” he corrects automatically. “This is Mordred. He wants to be a knight of Camelot.”

Mordred smiles down at Merlin, who ducks behind Arthur. He doesn’t fault his child— that smile looks strained, even to him. 

“It’s good to see you again, Emrys.”

Merlin peeps from around him, eyes widening. “I’m Merlin,” he says earnestly while Arthur wonders what Emrys means yet again. Chief Iseldir had called him by that name before, once, when he was a baby. Did sorcerers have different names to other sorcerers, like a title? Mordred’s smile looks less painful.

“I know. You just reminded me of someone I… know.” The slight pause is enough to make Arthur realize that he _knows._ Instinctively, he pulls Merlin behind him. This man won’t hurt him. He won’t _allow_ him to hurt Merlin. He doesn’t know how he knows who Merlin truly is, but he’ll get to the bottom of it.

The fierceness of his protectiveness is something that surprises himself.

Mordred meets his eyes and nods once.

* * *

“What do you know about Merlin?” he asks, later, when he’s called Mordred to his personal chambers so that they won’t be overheard. The child in question is with Mithian on their daily walk through the gardens. Mordred hesitates.

“I… I met him when I was younger. And he was older. He saved my life.”

“He did that a lot,” Arthur says, mostly to himself. “How did you recognize him?”

Mordred hesitates. “I can’t tell you,” he eventually replies and Arthur hears _I can’t trust you._ How many secrets has Merlin kept over the years from him? He doesn’t think Gaius knows everything about Merlin’s exploits, and it seems like he’s unearthing more secrets about his friend as more sorcerers start trading in Camelot again as he slowly relaxes the laws.

“Then can you tell me what ‘Emrys’ means?”

He waits—He can see the conflict in Mordred’s eyes, and a part of him is grateful to this unexpected loyalty to his ward who is becoming more and more like a son to him every day. He should have stopped him from calling him “papa” when he could, but it’s too late now, and he’s attached to the child. Maybe, if he does manage to pass the knight’s tests…

“It is a name from a druidic prophecy.” His patience is rewarded. (Maybe he should be patient more often?) “Emrys is the protector and the guide of the Once and Future King.”

 _Me._ “I’ve… been called that before.” Merlin has called him that, a couple of times, when he’s pulling him out of the pits of his despair.

“I know,” says Mordred. “Emrys has always been your greatest ally.”

“And Merlin was my closest friend,” he responds, because he doesn’t know what else to say. It seems he did answer correct because Mordred smiles a little, and his shoulders relax.

“I can see that.”

“You’re dismissed.” He’s had enough knowledge for one day and he’s not really ready to take in another revelation. Mordred stands and makes to leave, but he pauses.

“King Arthur?” His voice is hesitant as he twists his upper body. His gaze locks with Arthur’s.

“Yes?”

Mordred smiles slowly. “I can see what he saw in you.”

He blinks, taken surprise by the sincerity in his words. A compliment, if there ever was one. “Thank you,” he replies. Because that is the only way he can.

Mordred leaves, and Arthur mentally checks _character_ off his list. Maybe, even if he’s not strong enough with swordplay yet, he can train him himself, and convince Percival and Lancelot to help when he’s not able…. He certainly wants men like him with loyalty and honor within his ranks.

He definitely wants men like him loyal to Merlin, because he’s _sure_ that imp will get into trouble as he gets older.

* * *

“Papa?”

Arthur rolls over with a groan, blinking blearily at Merlin’s tearstained face. Immediately, concern sets in and he pulls the toddler into bed with him, placing him between himself and Mithian’s gently bulging belly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Bad dream,” he mumbles. “I was burning alive… and everyone hated me.”

 _Because of his magic,_ he realizes instantly. That’s the only thing that could cause a nightmare like that. And then he’s angry, because no child should have to suffer such a serious nightmare – It should be silly dreams about monsters hiding in the dark, not burning alive at the stake. How many other children has had these nightmares? 

“Do you hate me?”

Arthur flinches and meets Merlin’s heavy, tearstained gaze. _How many times has he wondered that? How many nightmares has he had… before?_

“I could never hate you.”

Merlin smiles and presses against him, but Arthur’s heart feels heavy.

* * *

For some reason, Arthur finds himself wandering through the Western Corridor toward Morgana’s chambers, now prison. He’s not sure why, but he soon finds himself at the doors to her living quarters. Guinevere steps out, and they blink at each other in surprise.

“Ah, Guinevere! Uh… I didn’t know you were visiting Morgana. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

She smiles at him, her cheeks aglow, and he smiles back at her. “No, no. Go ahead. I was just leaving.”

His hand remains on the handle, and he doesn’t turn it immediately. “Gwen?” It feels strange, calling her by a nickname that Morgana had given to her so many years ago. He meets her gaze, and she tilts her head. “Are you happy?”

She had married Sir Lancelot not long after Merlin had been named his ward, and whenever he looked at her from afar, she seemed happy. Something in her eyes softens and her small smile returns.

“Very.” Her hand drops to her stomach and brushes over it, and Arthur blinks, wondering if she was implying…

“Are you…?” Her smile widens and she nods. He feels mixed emotions—that could have been him, but it’s not, and he’s happy that she’s happy. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

He opens Morgana’s room, surprised by how much she looks like the person he had once known. She doesn’t look like the mad sorceress anymore. Her eyes widen as she meets his gaze, and then they shutter shut. “Arthur, I don’t see you here often.”

For a moment, he studies her, and then he takes her writing desk’s chair uninvited. He’s not sure why he came here, but he knows she has a reason. “I’m busy, Morgana.”

She snorts. “Can’t you delegate most of your kingly duties to other people?”

“I do, but there’s still quite a lot that I have to look over myself.”

They don’t say anything for a long time, and Arthur glances around her room. It’s so familiar.

“I almost wish you had put me in the cells meant for the worst kinds of prisoners with food rations… instead, you treat me as our father used to, except I can’t leave this room.”

He considers not replying, but she looks puzzled. His compassion gets the better of him, and he sighs. “I considered you to be my sister, even before I realized that you actually were. You might have forgotten that, but I didn’t.”

“So strange…” Her eyes are wide. “You used to deny you cared for anyone. Vehemently.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow at her. “Do you honestly think I wouldn’t grow up eventually? I was a boy then. I have a wife, a son, and a baby on the way.”

“I suppose I didn’t.”

He could have become like her and his father so easily. From one of the pockets of his coat, he pulls his mother’s book on the Old Ways that he’s read at least a hundred times. “Here. This was my mother’s.”

She takes it from him, her hands as pale as they once were, and she opens the cover. “Your mother was a sorceress?”

“No. She was about as magical as I am. She liked their principles.” He wasn’t going to show her his mother’s journal on magic or diary—Morgana would call Ygraine a hypocrite for thinking that the magic would take somebody else’s life for his.

“How come you have this? It looks recently used.”

He hesitates, and her eyes land on him with a piercing intensity. “I’ve been rewriting the laws on magic since you killed my father.” She stares at him, and he glances at the desk. “It’s a slow process, but I refuse to do anything drastic. I’m not like you, and I’m certainly not like our father.”

“Oh.”

He stands, and smiles at her. “I’d like that back in one piece eventually, please.”

She raises an eyebrow at him, but a slow smirk spreads across her face. “You won’t be able to get it back if you never pop in to say hello between all your ‘kingly duties.’”

Maybe she was beginning to heal. “I will.”

* * *

“Lord Geoffrey?” Arthur calls out softly as he enters the library. The librarian is seated behind his desk as usual, and he can’t help but smile a little at him as he makes his way over. Over the last few years, he has started to appreciate the surly old man who seemed to have developed a soft spot for him. At least he doesn’t glare at him whenever he asks for a book.

“What do you need this time?” There is a twinkle in his eyes, and Arthur bites back a smile.

“Two things, actually. Do you have anything on the druidic prophecies?”

Lord Geoffrey nods slowly, eyebrows knitting together. “I believe I do. Why do you ask?”

“Just something I heard someone say,” he replies neutrally. Lord Geoffrey studies him before he gets up and makes his way into a part of the library that is deeper.

“What else did you want?”

He hesitates for a split second, before he plunges forward head first. “Is there anything left on the laws before the Purge?” He’s not quite ready to completely lift the ban on magic yet, but he’s sure that his intentions to are as clear as day. He’s allowed druids to trade their wares in Camelot again, and, once, when a child druid accidentally lit his father’s merchant stall on fire, he had let him go with a warning not to use magic in Camelot.

Some people were disgruntled with him—mostly the younger generation who had never seen the good in magic, oddly enough. There were a few of his father’s most avid supporters in his council still fighting him, but the majority of the people, who remembered the days before the Purge, seemed welcoming of the change.

Lord Geoffrey glances at him and then he nods. “There are.”

* * *

“I dub thee Sir Mordred, knight of Camelot.”

* * *

The druid chief looks at Arthur, and his face is serious. Arthur tightens his grip on the book about magic he was just gifted with, as a gesture of good will. “Use the knowledge in there wisely, King Arthur.”

Arthur nods. “I shall.”

* * *

“This is Amr, Merlin.” Mithian holds the baby carefully, and Arthur lifts Merlin onto the bed. “He’s your baby brother.”

Merlin smiles, tilting his head, and Arthur trades a smile with Mithian. The exhaustion in her eyes worries him a little, but Gaius _did_ say she was fine.

“Hello, Amr.” He pronounces the newborn’s name very carefully and very calmly. Arthur remembers how he was bouncing after Gaius, eagerly awaiting Amr’s birth. “I’m Merlin. I’m your big bwother.”

Arthur doesn’t miss Mithian’s yawn, so he ruffles Merlin’s hair to get his attention. “Come on,” he says, nodding his head off to the side. “It’s late and Mithian is tired.”

Merlin pouts up at him but he clambers down. Arthur leans over and kisses Mithian’s forehead, and then Amr’s. _My sons._

“Night night, Amr.” Merlin sounds sad to leave as Arthur lifts him into his arms. “Night night, ma.”

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite, Merlin,” Mithian replies, and Merlin grins at them.

“Get some sleep, okay?”

Mithian nods. “Of course.”

* * *

“Lord Geoffrey?” Arthur calls out as he enters the library. Instead of Geoffrey greeting him, Merlin pops around the corner with a slightly guilty expression on his face. “ _Merlin?_ ”

“Hi papa,” he says. Arthur picks him up, and Merlin wraps his tiny arms around his neck.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, baffled. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

The guilt on his face tells him _no._ (Perfectly innocent? His middle name should be Trouble!) “Sorry.” He ducks into his shoulder, and Arthur sighs.

“I’m not angry.” He pokes his side to make him giggle a little. “Just make sure someone goes with you next time, okay?”

Merlin makes a face. “Can’t you?”

“Maybe sometimes,” he says, already making a mental note to himself to take Merlin with him on some of his weekly excursions to the Magical Center of the library. He almost wants to kick himself for not thinking of it sooner. “Okay, Merlin?”

He looks unhappy, even though he nods. “’kay.” And then his eyes brighten. “I wanna know words.”

“You want to learn how to read?” he translates. Merlin nods, and he can’t help but laugh. _Three and already wanting knowledge._ “Of course.”

* * *

Merlin does not take to the sword. At all. Between his natural clumsiness and lack of motivation, Arthur comes to realize that it’ll never be his strength – though, for Pete’s sake, he’ll at least teach him enough that he’ll be a fair enough warrior to not be killed. There is no way he’ll let him give him heart attacks the same way his old friend once had.

However, he picks up books and words far quicker than he himself ever did.

Figures.

Merlin has always been too smart for his own good.

* * *

“See, Amr, this word is _ca-t._ Cat! This is a cat.” Merlin pets the kitten curled by his side. Amr looks at him. “This is a _bird._ I am bird.”

“You’re not a bird, Merlin,” Arthur says. “And it’s ‘ _I am_ a _bird._ ’”

“I am a bird,” Merlin echoes, frowning. He turns back to Amr. “Papa says I am not a bird.”

Amr giggles.

“Amr agrees with me though!”

Arthur rolls his eyes, the smile makes its way onto his face and he didn’t bother with stifling it. “You’re both terrible.”

* * *

“Boys, please,” Mithian says with a sigh, gently rubbing her protruding belly. “Merlin, don’t goad him. Amr, you’re not supposed to hit Merlin with your sword.”

Amr blinks at Mithian and then he smiles widely – quite innocently, but Arther recognizes the mischievous expression instantly.

“What does ‘goad’ mean?” Merlin asks, turning toward him with big, pleading eyes. Arthur sets down his pen and looks at Merlin, then at Amr, then back to Merlin.

“It means to annoy somebody to do something.” 

* * *

“King Arthur – Merlin – there’s a fire – his room –”

Arthur bolts without a second’s thought and tears through the castle. When he sees the seven-year-old sitting on the steps next to the guard, the adrenaline fades leaving dizzying relief in its wake. He doesn’t bother with trying to compose himself as he squashes the child against his chest. Merlin clutches around him just as hard.

“I – I’m sorry,” he babbles. “I didn’t mean to – it just got away – I tried to stop it, I swear. Please don’t hurt me, papa. I’ll be better next time.”

“Merlin?” he pulls away slightly, and squats so they’re at eye level. Merlin’s gaze is fixed on his feet. “What on earth are you talking about?”

Merlin bites his lip and looks at the guard. Arthur dismisses him with a sharp movement of his hand. But he still does not speak.

“What happened?” he prompts.

“I don’t think I can live in Camelot anymore.”

“Why not?” He keeps the impatience out of his tone. _Now_ what kind of idea was he getting in his head? Merlin looks at him with suddenly steady eyes, and Arthur freezes at the familiar look. It’s … the one … he used to wear on occasion. Whenever he was about to say something wise.

“Because my magic hurts me whenever I don’t use it.” 

Arthur stares at this child, and then he settles back onto his heels. _This must have been Morgana’s life,_ he realizes. _No wonder she went mad._

“I’m not going to let you leave, Merlin.” He says gently and makes a split-second decision – or maybe it’s not really a sudden decision when he’s been considering it long before now. He doesn’t want that fear to morph into terror, or worse – to hatred. “I’m going to let magic come back to Camelot.”

“Really?” Unshed tears brim in his eyes and cling to his eyelashes. Arthur nods, and he hopes that it’s the right thing to do.

“Really. I’ve been working on it for a long time.”

The answering smile on his face tells him that it is.


End file.
